a.If Badger had been a professional thief, would be wrong to punish the
person who awoke in Badger’s bed (with Badger’s body), and let go
free the person who awoke in Everglade’s bed and who remembered
all of Badger’s crimes as his own

10.Continuity of consciousness criterion of personal identity

a.Proposed by John Locke

b.Having a continuous set of experiences; A continuity of stream of
consciousness

c.Each momentary consciousness is linked to the one before and after
by similarities and recollection

11.Olen equates continuity of consciousness with having same memories
and personality traits

a.Might think the three are somewhat distinct

i.Continuity of consciousness

ii.Memories

iii.Personality traits

12.Locke: Same person=continuity of consciousness=same memory

a.My memories of these things happening to me is what makes me the
person I am

13.Problems with memory criterion

a.Memory blanks: If I don’t remember anything that happened to me
during a certain period does that mean that whoever existed in my
body then was not me? (No, says Olen)

b.Inaccurate memories: one might sincerely believes one remembers
things that never happened.

i.These apparent memories not genuine memories

14.Memory can’t constitute personal identity because

a.Believing one remembers a set of experiences does not make them
yours

i.For they could be mistaken memories,

ii.Even if they are genuine memories, it is not the memories that
make those experiences yours, but the experiences being yours
is what made the memories

iii.And personal identity is constituted by having a certain set of
experiences (not by having memories of them)?

15.Mind criterion of personal identity

a.A possible criterion for sameness of consciousness (person) is
sameness of mind

b.Mind is conceived of as a continuous, non-physical substance

c.The thing that has these experiences

d.This continuous mind is the self and makes us who we are

16.Problems with mind criterion

a.Assumes mind-body dualism and many think this is not plausible

b.Hume’s problem: we do not experience this self, this subject of our
experiences

22.Functional theory: A mental state is constituted by its function, that is, how
it relates to other mental states and behavior

a.E.g., A Martian or animal might be in pain, even if it does not have c-neurons firing

i.As long as it has something that plays the same role/function as
pain does in us, it has pain

ii.Perhaps it has a functionally equivalent state that is caused by
silicon, or r-neurons firing

iii.This state tends to be caused by bodily injury, to produce the
belief that something is wrong with the body, produce the
desire to be out of that state, produce anxiety, and, in the
absence of any stronger, conflicting desires, to cause wincing
or moaning.

iv.Then the Martian or animal is in pain, even if that mental state
is realized by totally different physical state

b.E.g., We can play chess using anything as chess pieces, so can a
psychology be embodied by almost anything, assuming that it is
complex enough

23.Identity theory can’t allow for life after death

a.On the identity view, since the mind/self is the brain, when the brain
dies so does the mind/self/person

24.Olen’s functional account of mind/person/self, makes life after death
possible, even for a materialist

a.For death of the body need not be death of the person if God
instantiates a person’s personality in some other substance than the
dead human body

i.And if this substance is material/physical, materialism is
preserved

25.So a materialist can believe in life after death

26.Fits with John Hick’s idea that God recreates or reconstitutes a person’s
body in heaven

27.Olen’s problems with the popular conception of life after death

a.At death of the body, the soul leaves it and travels to a realm called
heaven

b.Metaphor only, for

c.If soul literally leaves the body, how does it get out? By mouth, ears?

d.How get to heaven? Turn left at Mars?

e.If soul remains disembodied, how can it perceive anything if it has no
sense organs to perceive

f.How are the souls to recognized each other if disembodied? What is
there to recognize

i.Memories, personality and so on.

28.People’s belief that there is continuity of personhood between heaven
and earth is important

a.We remember our lives on earth, we recognize friends and relatives,
our personalities are like ones on earth and we are judged by God for
our actions on earth

29.Life after death, or reincarnation, without same personality (thoughts,
memories, character traits) seems of little value (and is nonsensical)

c.If something else survives (say a nonphysical substance), if it has no
memories of prior life, does not recognize the soul of others who were
important in earlier life, what comfort could such a continuing
existence bring?

i.How could it be the survival of the person?

d.It is not sameness of stuff that constitutes personal identity, but
sameness of consciousness

30.Conclusions

a.If basis of personal identity was sameness of body then life after
death impossible

b.Our concept of a person is a concept of something that does not seem
tied to a particular body

c.Rather concept of person tied to a particular stream of consciousness

d.Continuing stream of consciousness over time, continuing person

e.We can give a coherent account of continuing consciousness from
one body to another

f.If is possible to program another brain to have the same psychology
as the brain I now have, then it is possible for me to change bodies

g.This makes it possible for me to survive the death of my body.

MISCELLANEOUS (Can ignore)

31.Multiple personalities

a.One woman (Sybil) having radically distinct personalities

b.Each personality has own memories, values, behavior patterns, name

c.Sybil only assumes one personality at a time

d.What ever happened during the time she was one personality would
remembered as happening only to that personality

e.When Sybil assumed another personality, she would claim not to
know of these experiences or claim they had happened to someone
else

f.Other personalities spoken of in third person.

32.Describe multiple personalities in two ways

a.The woman embodied several persons (multiple personality)

i.Memory criterion suggests this

b.The woman embodied only one person, but it was split into different
personalities (split personality)

i.Body criterion suggests this

c.Explanation that supports body criterion

i.What happened was that an aspect of Sybil’s personality was so
painful and aroused such guilt, that she repressed it

ii.Refused to recognize it as her own

iii.Result in split personality

iv.One person who si managing the various aspects of his o r her
personality

v.Multiple personalities a strategy unconsciously adopted by one
person to resolve inner conflict

vi.A badly fractured person rather than several persons in one
body

33.Olen thinks of mind and soul as the same

a.Soul is conceived of as crucial element of a person

b.It involves one’s character traits, personality, thoughts, likes and
dislikes, memories, continuity of experiences that make us persons we
are